Displaced
by cherry-sodas
Summary: When Carrie Shepard was seven years old, she was quite sure her big sister was the Wicked Witch of the West. [AU. Embedded into the 'Arrogance and Aggression' universe.]


**Ah, yes. We're finally here. Like everything else, this story takes place in the 'Arrogance and Aggression' universe. It's taken … what? Nearly four months for me to write this? It's not like anyone was waiting for it, but still. I'm stunned by how long this took.**

**This story follows Carrie Shepard, my OFC for the Shepard family, despite the fact that the Shepards already had a sister. Hopefully my reasoning for that decision becomes clear after this story. I've neglected Carrie as a whole character for too long now. It's time to make something happen with her.**

**Here we go!**

* * *

_1957_

When Carrie Shepard was seven years old, she was quite sure that her big sister was the Wicked Witch of the West.

It all began when she went to Ponyboy Curtis's house on Easter Sunday after his family had returned home from church, and Carrie found her way over to spend some time with her friends. Her mother was out, no doubt pretending to make it work with another nameless, faceless man down the block. Tim was too busy trying to wrangle Curly and Angela to really tell Carrie she ought not walk alone to visit the Curtis family down a couple of blocks if she wanted to. Her oldest brother (age eleven at the time) was often left alone with the other kids far too often, and though he knew he had to keep a close eye on Curly and Angela, Tim always knew he could count on little Carrie to be safe and responsible. When she told him she was going to go see Ponyboy, he muttered something that sounded a little like "OK," but Carrie couldn't be sure. He was more focused on Angela's hands around their brother's neck (again).

Like many other kids around the neighborhood, Carrie visited the Curtis family's house quite often. Of all the families in town, the Curtis parents were just about the only ones who actually _liked _their kids – at least, it often felt that way. Even at the age of seven, Carrie resented when Steve and Jane Randle complained that they thought their folks hated them. They didn't. Though Mr. and Mrs. Randle fought like cats and dogs every day and night, Mrs. Randle bought her children a dessert on their respective birthdays every year. Carrie, on the other hand, wasn't sure who her father was, and she was sure that her mother didn't even remember when her birthday was.

Whenever Carrie went to visit the Curtis family, Tim thought she was there to play with Sodapop's twin sister, Sadie. Sadie was a year older than Carrie and could read a lot more books than Carrie could, and she liked to run around Crutchfield Park until the sun went down. Sadie was always covered in dirt because she was always trying to keep up with her twin, Sodapop, and his best friend, Steve Randle. And occasionally, Carrie liked to team up with Sadie and show the boys that girls were just as capable of winning races as they were. But as nice and as fun as she was, Sadie wasn't the draw for Carrie. When Carrie Shepard visited the Curtis family, she was there to see Ponyboy.

Carrie and Ponyboy were a lot alike. He was almost exactly a year younger than Carrie, but even though he was six years old, he was every bit as smart as she was. They liked to tell stories and make up their own worlds when they played together. Over the summer, they turned Crutchfield Park into a magical world all their own. The trees became ogres (some kind, some villainous), and the swing set became a magical carriage like in the story of Cinderella (one of Carrie's favorites, though she would never openly admit to that). When Carrie asked what they should name their magical world, which they believed in more and more each day they pretended to visit, Ponyboy answered without hesitation.

"Carrie World," he said.

"Really?" Carrie asked. "How come?"

"It was all your idea!"

Carrie held onto that moment for longer than she realized. It was the first time Ponyboy Curtis had been so clearly _sweet _to her. When they were children (and again when they were slightly more than that), he was always kind and thoughtful toward her. But he was rarely ever sweet. That was Sodapop's game. Every now and then, Ponyboy could pick up on it, and when he did, Carrie lived for it. It took her many more years to discover why, but when she was seven years old, she simply knew it to be true.

When Carrie knocked on the Curtis family's door on that Easter Sunday, Mrs. Curtis answered, with Ponyboy clinging to her leg. As soon as he saw that it was Carrie Shepard standing on the front porch (a cooler, older person in the neighborhood whom he wanted to impress, as the youngest), he let go of his mother's side immediately. Carrie noticed and had herself a chuckle, but only in her mind.

Mrs. Curtis smiled down at Carrie on the porch, always happy to see her sons' friends.

"Carrie!" she said. "Happy Easter, honey."

"Happy Easter," Carrie said. "Can I come in?"

"Of course."

But before she could answer the door, she craned her head to look around. She frowned, disapproving, but not of Carrie.

"Did Tim walk you here?" Mrs. Curtis asked.

Carrie shook her head.

"No," she said, polite as could be. "I walked myself."

Mrs. Curtis frowned harder and quickly stepped aside to let Carrie inside the house. Ponyboy's face lit up as soon as she stepped into the living room, and he took her hand to let her know she was more than welcome with them. As Mrs. Curtis closed and locked the door (Years later, the gang would misremember how often Mrs. Curtis kept that door locked before she opened it up to one of the boys or their sisters, especially after Darry's choice to keep it as open as a church.), she called to her husband, who was splitting a bottle of Pepsi between Sadie and Soda in the kitchen.

"Darrel!" she said. "Little Carrie Shepard's here, and she's gonna need a ride home!"

Mr. Curtis came out of the kitchen, followed by Sadie and Soda, clinking their glasses to the holiday and to each other. In that moment, Carrie Shepard felt intensely jealous. Angela was just a year older than she was – practically twins, just like those two Curtis kids. The two of them didn't get along like that. In fact, Carrie was quite sure Angela would rather forget that her kid sister even existed. She was always rolling her eyes at her. When Carrie would come back from the library with stacks of books, and Angela had been given a time-out for pulling another girl's hair while she was looking through the stacks of science books, Carrie would always ask her why she did that. Angela would always say something to the effect of, "'Cause she reminded me of _you, _dumbass."

Carrie always wished she was part of a different family after Angela said things like that.

"Good to see ya, Carrie, honey," Mr. Curtis said. "Ya wanna sit down with the rest of us? The TV's gonna play _The Wizard of Oz_."

"Yeah!" Ponyboy chimed in. "I know you like that movie. Me and you watched it on TV before, remember?"

Carrie nodded excitedly and took a seat next to Ponyboy on the floor. They sat in front of the couch, where the twins squeezed themselves in between their folks. Darry, the oldest brother, was twelve years old at the time and still going through a phase in which he didn't like to watch TV with his parents. Even though they were very small and didn't know how to talk about things like that, Carrie sensed (even then) that Ponyboy missed his oldest brother terribly. Down the line, it would explain a lot.

After awhile, the movie came on the TV, and awhile after that, Dorothy was transported to Oz to meet Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. Glinda the Good Witch was _fascinating _to Carrie Shepard. Her voice was light and dreamy, and she wore the prettiest shade of pink (which Carrie, as a Shepard, could never admit to having a little girl's fondness for). Even though she had pretty red hair like Katie Mathews, she was warm, gentle, and kind, like Jane Randle. She wished that when she went back to her house that Glinda the Good Witch would be there. Maybe she could put the storm door back on its hinges. Even at seven years old, Carrie was embarrassed that the Shepards were the only family on the block without one.

But when she returned home that night, she knew Glinda wouldn't be there. She knew her mother wouldn't be there, either, as she'd muttered something to Tim earlier that day about staying the night with some man a few streets away – she wasn't sure which house, but she'd know it when she saw it, she said. No, when Carrie returned home, she'd be met with her brothers, loving in the only way they knew how to be (which would continue to confuse Carrie until she was much, much older), and her sister, Angela, the Wicked Witch of the West.

Carrie hated to think of Angela that way. It wasn't that she hated her sister or received any joy from casting her sister in a green face and a pointy black hat. No, in her own, unique, Carrie way, she loved Angela. She loved Angela even when she pulled her hair and knocked her books out of her hands for no reason apart from spite. There were times when she'd get on her knees and pray that one day, Angela would wake up and suddenly love Carrie and want to protect her. But that never happened. It was never _going _to happen. She still looked at Carrie with such contempt. Her face would almost turn green, like she wanted to vomit at the sight of her younger sister, who liked to read and draw and keep to herself most of the time. For seven-year-old Carrie, it was obvious. Angela was the Wicked Witch.

When the Witch arrived in Munchkinland in that classic puff of smoke, Ponyboy sighed loudly. Soda leaned forward and looked at his brother's face upside down.

"What're you sighin' for, Pony?" he asked.

"I just wish the movie was in color," Ponyboy said. "The Witch's cloud is orange at the movie theater."

"He's right," Sadie said. "It ain't as tuff when it's just a blob of gray."

Carrie's eyes were fixated on the Witch. The more she cackled and sneered at Dorothy and Glinda, the more Carrie saw herself and Angela reflected on the screen. She didn't know how to deal with what she was feeling, nor did she know how to name it. She just knew that when the feeling started, she was very itchy on the outside, and as the feeling grew, she felt like she wanted to scream. But she didn't. She liked the Curtises, and she was always afraid they would figure out she was nuts and not let her hang around Ponyboy anymore. That, for little Carrie, sounded like one of the worst possible nightmares she could have had.

She leaned over to Ponyboy when the Witch was telling Dorothy she'd get her and her little dog, too. Without taking her eyes away from the black and white TV screen, Carrie whispered, "The Witch reminds me of Angela."

Ponyboy wrinkled his nose in some confusion.

"The one crushed by the house, or the one with the green face?" he asked.

"The one with the green face. Even if we ain't seein' it green now."

"That ain't Angela. It ain't like her at all."

"What do you mean? It's just like her. Don't ya think?"

"She can't be the Wicked Witch of the _West_, Carrie. We live on the East Side. Everybody knows that."

Carrie didn't say anything. She didn't smile or laugh. Ponyboy meant well – he always did, the little sweetheart. But Carrie knew what she knew. And when she returned home from the Curtis house late that night, she'd know it more than ever.

Mr. Curtis dropped her off at the front porch, and Tim opened the door to let her back inside. As her big brother shut the door behind her, he said it was a good thing that Mr. Curtis showed up in that very moment. He'd been so busy trying to keep up with Curly and Angela that he'd nearly forgotten the (half-hearted) permission he gave to Carrie about going to the Curtises that night. He asked her what she did while she was there. She didn't answer. She was too angry with Tim for forgetting about her, even if it wasn't exactly his fault. Maybe it was. Carrie didn't know anymore. She was so even-keeled and well-behaved compared to her middle siblings. She was easy to forget because no one was ever paying attention to her.

No one, that was, except for Angela.

When Carrie wandered into their bedroom that night, Angela was sitting on the bed, glaring at her. As soon as Carrie noticed her expression, she felt afraid and tired at the same time. She wasn't tired enough to fall asleep. It wasn't that kind of tired. She didn't know how to explain it to her seven-year-old self, but she knew what she knew because she knew it.

"Hi, Angela," Carrie said. Her voice was small and shaky, and she didn't like it. "How are you?"

"What do _you _care, dumbass?" Angela jeered.

And because Carrie was still only seven years old, even in spite of her undercover intelligence that no one had seemed to discover, she didn't understand why it was that her older, more rambunctious sister might have glared and snapped at her for seemingly no reason. She was only seven years old, and she felt lost and displaced in the house that was supposed to be her home. Carrie felt lost and displaced in front of her sister, a person who was supposed to love her but instead looked upon her like someone who didn't belong in their family.

Did she? Did Carrie belong in the Shepard family? Was it her home? Or was there some place more like home that Carrie could go and escape to?

She was a little girl, and she didn't have any of the answers. All she knew was that she was tired, and she wanted Angela to love her. But Angela was taking up all the space in the bed, and there was no way to convince someone else to love you. Carrie knew that firsthand. She'd been trying her whole life with her mother.

When Carrie didn't answer Angela's question, she rolled her eyes and spread out across the bed, making it even harder for Carrie to squeeze in and go to sleep.

"You're such a dumbass," Angela said again.

She didn't even notice when Carrie quietly went off to the bathroom for a good, long cry. And as far as Carrie was concerned, no one did. She was displaced, and there was nothing anybody could do to fix it.

* * *

_1963_

When Carrie Shepard was almost thirteen years old, she was quite sure that Sodapop Curtis was the Scarecrow.

After the last bell on the last day of school for the year, she met up with her friends to walk out to the front lawn and meet up with the high school kids. The local high school started classes twenty minutes before the local junior high and ended thirty minutes earlier, which Carrie and her younger friends always found patently unfair. She looked around the crowded and busy hallway to see if Angela was anywhere to be seen. She wasn't. That sounded about right to Carrie, no matter how upsetting. Angela had threatened to pitch a conniption when Carrie started at the junior high. Apparently, she didn't want her locker to be next door to a loser's locker, even if that loser was her own sister. Carrie pretended like it didn't hurt. She even tried to pretend that Angela wasn't her sister at all. It seemed to work for Angela. But Carrie couldn't do that. It hurt too much, and she didn't have a particularly high tolerance for pain.

She met up at the door with Lilly Cade and Katie Mathews, who were champing at the bit to get out of there. Lilly and Katie were clever in their own ways, but they'd never been quite as fond of school and learning as Carrie was. Where Carrie was bound to suffer another bout of summer boredom and depression, like she did every year, Lilly and Katie were about to have the time of their lives. That never quite sat well with Carrie. Even with her friends who seemed to really care about her (more than Angela did, anyway), she didn't exactly belong.

"_There _you are, Carrie!" Lilly said, wrapping her tiny arm around her friend's shoulders, pulling her toward the door. "We've been goin' outta our minds tryin' to find you!"

"I was where I always am," Carrie said.

"Askin' the English teacher for extra reading," Katie said between snickers, which Lilly lovingly reciprocated.

"If you liked to read, you'd be curious about reading different kinds of books, too, you know," Carrie said, halfway snapping at two of the people she loved most. "There are books they don't let us read in school, you know."

"You're tellin' me there are worse books than _Silas Marner_?" Katie said.

"I'm telling you there are better books," Carrie said. "We just don't get to read them because they have 'inappropriate' themes in them."

"I'll tell _you _what's inappropriate," Lilly said. "The fact that it's summer outside, my brother's waitin', and we're still in here!"

Carrie wondered what Lilly was so anxious to go home for, but she didn't say anything out loud. They didn't really talk about the way Lilly grew up or the house she was living in. It was almost as though Lilly could manage to forget her circumstances. Carrie envied her. There was no place like home, all right, and her home was a disaster, run by a beleaguered teenage boy with a penchant for trouble of his own. She could never forget.

"We can't go yet," Carrie said.

"Why not?" Lilly asked.

"Because he's not out here yet, and we promised we'd wait for him."

Almost like on cue, Ponyboy Curtis came running out of a classroom down the corner to meet up with the girls at the door. He was one of the fastest runners in school, but he still looked out of breath as he caught up to them – probably out of fear Lilly would have his head if he kept them waiting a minute longer. When Carrie saw him barrel out to meet them, she could barely contain her blush and her silly grin. She regretted it instantly. She'd been doing _so well_.

Years earlier, Ponyboy's teachers decided it would be OK for him to skip second grade and move directly from first into third, where he ended up in the same classroom as Carrie Shepard. This was almost a dream come true for both of them. Before, they'd been able to play and talk during recess and at the Curtis house after school, but once Ponyboy was double promoted to Carrie's grade, they could sit next to each other in class, too. And they did. They sat next to each other all the time, drawing made-up lands in their notebooks and creating stories to surround and describe their pictures. These lands were secrets between Carrie and Ponyboy that nobody else ever knew anything about. They couldn't. They'd mock them mercilessly if they knew. They'd mock them even more if they found out that Carrie and Ponyboy had just finished the seventh grade, and they still liked to play make believe during class and in the cafeteria.

But somewhere along the way, Carrie realized that she was becoming a teenager, and her feelings toward her friend Pony were changing. They were changing in that way that Jane Randle always told her they would. Jane was going into the ninth grade now and had been in love with Ponyboy's brother Sodapop for what felt like her whole life. But for years, Carrie never anticipated she would feel that way about anybody … until one day in English class early into the school year when she and Ponyboy bumped knees under their desks. The class was reading "A Red, Red Rose" by Robert Burns. Suddenly, there was a strange, new part of Carrie Shepard that was beginning to burn, too. She didn't understand it, but there were two things she knew about it: It felt wrong, and she needed to keep it a secret. Carrie Shepard was displaced in her own body.

Mostly, she did a good job of the latter. Her face almost never gave away her crush, and no one ever asked her directly if she felt that way about a boy or anybody yet. But she couldn't control the pinkness in her cheeks as she saw Pony barrel toward them that early summer day. He was just too cute.

"I'm sorry!" he said. "I didn't mean to keep ya waitin'. I just saw that Carrie asked for a longer readin' list this summer, and …"

"And you thought you'd get the same one," Carrie said.

"Well, yeah."

"Ponyboy, why didn't you just come outside and ask me? I obviously have it."

Now, it was Pony's turn to have pink cheeks.

"Oops," he said. "I guess I didn't think of that."

"And apparently, you didn't think of the fact that it was the last day of school, either," Lilly said and swung open the door. The four of them crossed the street and ended up on the high school lawn, where everyone else was having a time and waiting for them. At the time, only Katie's brother Two-Bit, Jane's brother Steve, and their friend Lucy Bennet were actually in high school, though Sadie had been double promoted to high school English in between seventh and eighth grade. All the former eighth graders: Sodapop Curtis, Johnny Cade, and Jane Randle, were there, too, but they'd moved out of the junior high much more quickly than the gaggle of slow former seventh graders behind them. Their lockers were closest to the main doors. Carrie was always strangely envious of that. She liked being able to run to the exit as quickly as possible whenever she could. Maybe if she'd grown up a little differently, she would have recognized much earlier that her preferences for speedy exits was more complicated than she had initially believed.

Carrie and her friends came upon the group (which included Dallas Winston, who hadn't attended school in probably a month and a half), and Lilly excitedly shouted and announced their presence. It didn't seem that the others were very impressed that they'd managed to walk across the street, but Sadie Curtis clapped, anyway. Sadie was sweet and supportive – exactly the kind of sister Carrie wished that Angela could be. She was also exactly the kind of sister Carrie wished she could be for Angela, but she hadn't figured out how.

"We're _here_!" Lilly said and threw her hands in the air.

"I'm real glad," Johnny said, not even meeting his sister's eye. "I was beginnin' to get worried about ya still stuck in there."

"We would have been here sooner, but Ponyboy needed to get a list of extra books to read over the summer," Katie said. "Took him a little while, but he figured it out."

"It's the same list I got," Carrie said, as though it was something to be proud of (and to her, it was). As it turned out, her tone seemed so strange that everyone else on the lawn stared at her like she had worms crawling out of her ears. Soda smiled a little, but Carrie didn't particularly notice. She just wanted the ground to open up and the earth to swallow her whole.

"Well, I'm glad you two got an extra reading list for the summer," Lucy Bennet said. She had moved to Tulsa from Detroit at the beginning of the school year and had quickly become Sadie Curtis's best friend. "If you like to read, there's no harm in doing it, even outside of school."

"You read so much I forgot you had a face," Dally said.

Lucy's face turned red (differently than Carrie's must have before, or so Carrie assumed), and she pulled a copy of _Pride and Prejudice _out of her bag. Without even looking up from the pages, she dryly replied, "You breathe with your mouth open so much I forgot you had a brain."

When Dally didn't say anything in response, just bowed his head and took the loss, Carrie was shaken to her core. She _wished _she could be that tuff.

Ponyboy turned to Carrie, showing off the list he'd been clutching in his hand since they left the junior high.

"Which book are you gonna read first, Carrie?" he asked. "I was thinkin' I'd go with _Of Mice and Men_. I heard it's real short, so it might be a good place to get started."

"Not a bad idea," Carrie said. "I thought I'd start with _Gulliver's Travels _since it's the oldest."

"Aww, shoot. I was hopin' we'd read the same books at the same time so we could talk about 'em."

Carrie turned pink again. Ponyboy didn't notice, and Carrie couldn't decide whether or not she wanted him to.

While Ponyboy might not have noticed Carrie's sudden blush, someone did. Before she could blink or take a breath, Sodapop Curtis came around to the side of her, wrapped his arm platonically around her shoulders, and pulled her away from the crowd. Out of the corner of her eye, Carrie thought she saw Sadie nod with approval. This had to be something big. Any time Sadie and Soda communicated with each other without using words, it was always big.

"Little Carrie Shepard!" he said gleefully. "Let's talk a walk."

"But I was in the middle of talkin' to your brother," Carrie said. "You do know what it means to have a conversation, don't you, Soda?"

"Yeah, I know what it means, but as it turns out, I can't spell it," he said. "Maybe that's why I flunked eighth-grade English and gotta repeat it for six weeks in the summer."

"Oh, Soda, I'm so sorry."

"No big deal. This broad I kinda like, Sandy, she flunked, too. Kept forgettin' to turn in her papers on time. If you ask me, I think the teacher was bein' unfair. Her grandfather's been sick in Florida for months. Family's been shufflin' her back and forth like she's … somethin' to be shuffled, I guess. What's it called when you wanna make a comparison between two things like how I just tried?"

"A simile."

"Wouldn't have known it if ya put a pistol to my head. See? Flunked English for all the right reasons, I did. My twin sister got moved up a whole year, and I got held back. Makes all the sense in the world."

Carrie wondered if Soda would ever have anything more to say about that. She'd spend the rest of her life wondering about it, but she'd never learn.

"Anyway, that ain't what I wanted to talk to you about, though I'm pretty sure you're smarter at books than me by a whole mile," Soda said. "I wanted to talk to you about Ponyboy."

Even the sound of his name was enough to make Carrie's heart beat funny and turn her cheeks pink. Soda noticed right away and kept talking. Carrie was too stunned to offer a response more than squawking.

"You're turnin' thirteen this summer, ain't ya?" Soda asked.

"Yeah," Carrie said. In her heart, she was a little defeated. Sodapop Curtis knew how old she would be turning that year and probably when, too, but her brothers and sister at home probably didn't have a clue. How was that fair?

"Well, that makes ya gettin' to the place where goin' steady and holdin' hands, all that starts to matter," Soda said. "I remember. It ain't been long since I turned thirteen, but I remember how big a difference it was between thirteen and twelve."

Carrie nodded. She had to agree. On her twelfth birthday, all she wanted to do was sit at home and eat the slice of chocolate cake that Darry Curtis had dropped off with Tim at the front door while Carrie was still sleeping. Now that she was approaching her thirteenth, she suddenly felt very moved to ask Jane Randle if she could borrow her lipstick.

"Pony's just turnin' twelve at the end of July," Soda said. "And I know things are confusin' for both of ya, since he ain't old enough to be in your class, but he's in it, anyway."

"I don't know …"

"Oh, c'mon, Carrie. You know me. You ain't gotta pretend."

Carrie bowed her head. She hadn't had an older boy be this nice to her since Darry dropped off that slice of chocolate cake on her twelfth birthday. Even Tim, it seemed, had stopped trying. She didn't feel the same way about Soda as she felt about Pony, but she wasn't going to say anything out loud. She was going to let Soda do the talking.

"Point is, he's awful young to be thinkin' about girls the way you're startin' to think about him," Soda said. "Maybe give him a break for a minute or two. Ya dig?"

"I didn't know I was bugging him," Carrie said.

"You ain't. You're his friend. It's just that readin' together for you means somethin' different now than it means for him. Go easy. He'll come 'round."

Carrie cynically chuckled under her breath. She wasn't so sure. It felt like no one would ever come around for her. Even when she was at home, her brothers and sisters barely noticed she was there. When she didn't come home for a night, it was like it didn't matter.

"You know something, Sodapop?" Carrie asked.

"Apparently not," Soda said.

"But that's just it. You're smarter than everybody says. You're smarter than most people. I don't think Tim or Dally or even Lucy Bennet would've known how I was feeling about Pony unless I walked right up to them and screamed it in their faces. And even then, they probably wouldn't have noticed."

"Why wouldn't they have noticed?"

"Because I'm Carrie, and no matter where I go, it's the wrong place."

Soda looked like he was going to break in half. As children, he and Carrie were never particularly close, but that didn't mean he didn't love her the same way he loved Lilly Cade and Katie Mathews. He wrapped her in his arm tighter, and she felt safe.

"You're in the right place when you're with us," Soda said. "Better stick close."

So, Carrie did.

* * *

_1965_

When Carrie Shepard was almost fifteen years old, the best and worst day of her adolescent life happened at the same time, and she was quite sure that Ponyboy Curtis was the Cowardly Lion.

The best part happened during the day. It was July 30, the day before her fifteenth birthday, and she had plans. She was going down to the movie house with Ponyboy Curtis, and it seemed like it was something of a date. Never mind that Ponyboy had spent the better part of the summer thinking about Cherry Valance, a pretty and smart Soc he'd seen at one of their National Honor Society meetings. He'd been the one to ask _Carrie _for an early birthday movie. Soda was right on the last day of seventh grade. Ponyboy was coming around. He was coming around for _Carrie Shepard_, the poor girl who never felt at home, in her bedroom or in her skin.

Pony wouldn't tell her what movie was playing at the movie theater that day. When they walked down the street and into the building, he even covered her eyes so she couldn't see the marquee.

"You're doing this because it's something I hate," Carrie said as they waited in line for a Coke. "Is it _Plan 9 from Outer Space_? You remember how much I hated that one. Vampira is too skinny. I swear."

"It ain't that," Ponyboy said. "You think they'd release _that _turkey back into the public? Naw, it's in the wild. Sometimes, they say, you can still hear it scream."

Carrie giggled. It had been about a week and a half since Pony's fourteenth birthday, and even in that week and a half, he was getting to be more and more charming to her adolescent sensibilities. This could be a brilliant matinee.

They found their seats in the very back of the main floor, where Ponyboy had gotten used to sitting by himself. It helped him to hide from folks he wanted to hide from and helped him to focus on the movie. He liked to focus on the movie, he said, because it was like watching a book. At the time, Carrie thought that was something close to profound.

"Are you gonna tell me what the movie is before the movie starts?" she asked.

"Naw, I'm gonna let ya be surprised," Ponyboy said. "It's your birthday present."

"How can _this _be my birthday present? I paid for my own ticket!"

"Was I supposed to pay for your ticket?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

But Carrie didn't have time to answer. Before she could, she realized the surprise had all been worth it. The curtains opened up, and a sepia-toned story unfolded before her. She was off to see the wizard, all right – for the first time since … well, she remembered when.

"Oh," she said. "I haven't watched _The Wizard of Oz _since …"

"Since the Easter before last," Ponyboy said. "With Sadie and Soda and Darry … and Mom and Dad."

Carrie nodded. When Mr. and Mrs. Curtis died, so did their Easter tradition. Carrie wasn't sure that Ponyboy would ever feel up to watching the movie again. She was glad he did. She was glad he chose to watch it with her.

As she sat there and watched the movie … got swept up in Oz and wished her home looked something like it … she couldn't help but get the feeling that Ponyboy wasn't watching the movie. He was watching _her_. Every time Carrie smiled at the screen, Ponyboy smiled at her. She caught it out of the corner of her eye and felt her heart stop. This couldn't be. She'd waited years for this, finally figuring that whatever Soda said before had to be wrong. But this … this felt right. Ponyboy hadn't just brought Carrie here because the next day was her birthday. He brought her there because she was Carrie, and her Carrie-ness mattered to him.

When the movie was over, Carrie turned to Ponyboy with one of her rare smiles on her face. She'd spent all her life worried and anxious that something was going to happen. Maybe she'd lose one of her brothers. Maybe her mother would finally pack up and leave them behind once and for all (as opposed to the months at a time she could be gone already). But for as long as she could remember, she'd been stiff. That wasn't always the case when she was with Pony (and only Pony). When Carrie Shepard got together with Ponyboy Curtis, she felt like she might finally have a place. She felt like a whole person, not just the baby Shepard.

"That was sure pretty," Carrie said. "It's gotta be one of the prettiest movies ever made."

"I think you're right," Ponyboy said. "Hey, you ever see _Gone with the Wind_? Me and Johnny went a little while back. That's gotta be up there for prettiest movie, too."

"They debuted the same year, you know."

"Yeah. '39. How'd you know that? You weren't born till '50."

"Who was the first President of the United States?"

"George Washington, silly."

"How did you know that? You weren't born until 1951."

"Oh, that's very funny. Almost like I ain't never seen a whole one-dollar bill before."

"On this side of town? You never really know."

"Ah, you think you're cute."

Carrie tried not to blush, but she knew she wasn't working. She blushed when she closed her eyes and fantasized about the day that Ponyboy Curtis might call her cute. Now that it was here, she was sure she was disaster. She closed her eyes and tried to recollect her thoughts, but it was nearly impossible. The word _cute _kept playing in her ears.

"You know, I coulda been braver about this," Ponyboy said.

Carrie wrinkled her nose in confusion.

"About what?" she asked.

"This whole movie thing. With you and me. I didn't just ask ya here 'cause it's your birthday, ya know."

"Then why'd you do it?"

Before Carrie could process that this was, in fact, her real life, and she was not, in fact, displaced in a body that shouldn't belong to her, Ponyboy Curtis's lips were on hers. Her eyes popped wide open in shock before she relaxed and closed them. The kiss was quick but it felt like years – probably because it had been years since Carrie had started imagining every kiss in every movie was between herself and Ponyboy. His lips tasted like butter, and she was sure hers were like Coca-Cola. It was exactly the kind of first kiss a guy like Ponyboy Curtis would want, Carrie figured. She just couldn't believe he would want it with _her_. Didn't he know where she lived? Didn't he know who she was? But of course he did. Darry had taken Tim in on the Curtis family couch more times than anybody in the gang could count. Why didn't Ponyboy care? Hadn't Darry given him a lecture about staying away from little Carrie Shepard because there was every chance she'd turn out like her brothers, or worse, like her _sister_? She didn't have time to think of more disasters because by the time she began to panic, the kiss was over.

"Damn," Carrie muttered. The kiss hadn't been particularly great, but it was … well, it was _damn_, and that was the only way she knew how to put it on the day before she turned fifteen.

"I brought ya here to try that," Ponyboy said. "Boy, the way Steve can shoot the shit about kissin' Evie. And sometimes more than kissin' her. I dunno. Figured I'd see what the fuss was about."

"With me?"

"Well, yeah, with you. You're Carrie. Couldn't be anybody else but Carrie."

Suddenly, Carrie felt overwhelmed, to the point where she thought she might cry. But she couldn't do that. Not in front of Ponyboy. Not after her first kiss. She wasn't going to be a nitwit. She wasn't going to be a dumbass. Her heart clenched when she thought of the word _dumbass_. She could hear it in Angela's voice so, so clearly. It made her sick. It made her miss Angela, but for what? Angela had never done anything kind or generous for her little sister. Perhaps Angela was just as displaced as little Carrie felt.

"I think you were plenty brave," she finally said. "Takes guts to plant one on a Shepard."

Ponyboy laughed, and Carrie might have been crazy. But she didn't think she saw a hint of regret in those beautiful and always sincere green eyes.

She let the high of her first kiss carry her home on a cloud that early evening. When she walked into the house, she heard Tim muttering a few choice words in the very back bedroom. That wasn't much of a shock. Tim was always swearing at something. The odd thing was that as far as Carrie knew, he was alone in the house. Their mother was _somewhere_, Curly was in the reformatory again, and Angela … you couldn't catch Angela dead in the Shepard house on a summer night. It was usually just Carrie, sitting in her room, staring blankly at the book in her lap and praying that she wouldn't hear a knock on the door or get the phone call from her nightmares. But that night, there was Tim, standing in the middle of Carrie and Angela's bedroom, cursing up a storm.

"Fuckin' didn't even think to tell me …"he murmured. "Fuckin' disrespectful little bitch. Fuckin' … fuck … oh, fuck you!"

"Tim?" Carrie asked.

Tim raised his head suddenly and frowned to see Carrie standing there. It made her feel even smaller and more out of place than she had in a while.

"Oh," he said. "It's just you."

_Just her_?

"What are you talking about?" Carrie asked. "Who are you looking for?"

Tim sighed.

"Ya know, when ya talk without really lookin' at me, ya sound just like her?"

"Who? Ma?"

"Not Ma. Fuckin' whore."

"I'm not sure who you're talking about."

"_Angela_, ya dumbass. Ya sound like Angela. After sharin' a room with her all these years, ya picked up a thing or two. Guess I'm glad it's your fuckin' voice and not fuckin' around."

"Tim, I'm still not there yet. What happened?"

Tim narrowed his eyes at Carrie, and for the first time in years, she felt a little afraid of her oldest brother. Maybe that was foolish. Maybe she should have always been afraid of him. But when she looked at him, she didn't see notorious gang leader Tim Shepard. She didn't see a police record or anything. She saw Tim – the kid who'd been tasked with being her father and her mother without having a say in it himself.

"Fuckin' Angela," he said. "She took off. Packed a bag and took off. She's runnin' away with one-a the Brumly Boys. Mighta knocked her up, she says. Just wrote a shit note and took off. Ain't gonna come back, neither."

Carrie's heart stopped again, but this time, it stopped with dread.

"How …" Carrie tried. "How do you know she's not going to come back?"

"Ya see this kinda thing as many times as I have, ya start to know when it sticks. This is gonna stick. At least for awhile. Hope ya said some nice shit to Angela last time ya saw her, 'cause it's gonna be awhile before ya see her again."

And with that, Tim skulked out of the room, leaving little Carrie Shepard in the dust. She looked around at the bedroom and noticed that Angela's clothes were off the ground. She never picked up her clothes unless she was going to put them on. If they were out of the room and nowhere to be seen, then Tim wasn't lying. Angela was gone, and there was no telling when she'd be back. Maybe she really _had _felt displaced, like Carrie did.

But if that was true, why didn't she say anything? Why did she let Carrie suffer like an outcast for all of their lives? Why couldn't Carrie have seen it before that day – the worst day of her life? Why didn't she do anything to stop her? Why couldn't Carrie and Angela have been just like Sodapop and Ponyboy, who made each other feel welcome and loved, even if they were a little different from one another?

Why didn't Carrie and Angela do anything to make each other feel like home?

* * *

_1985_

When Carrie Shepard was almost thirty-five years old (and no longer Carrie Shepard), she was quite sure that her eldest brother was the Tin Man.

It was a cloudy gray evening at the end of April, and Mrs. Carrie Curtis was one hood away from becoming Dr. Carrie Curtis. After years of jobs that didn't appeal to her bookish personality and commitment to education and research, Carrie finally bit the bullet and decided to apply to Ph.D. programs in philosophy. Much to her surprise, she was accepted into one at the University of Michigan. So, in 1980, she and Ponyboy packed up the life they built in Tulsa (including Cordelia Frost Curtis, their then-six-year-old daughter) and headed north. After five years of teaching, writing, researching, and defending, it was time. Carrie was ready. She finally felt at home, but now, it was time for her to move on. And again, to her surprise, she wasn't terrified. It felt right.

The university allotted her five tickets for the ceremony. Two, of course, went to Pony and Cordelia, who was now eleven. The third and fourth went to Dallas Winston and his wife, Lucy Bennet, who'd encouraged Carrie to pursue philosophy before she even knew if it was what she wanted. The fifth ticket, which Carrie was careful to mail all the way back home, was for Tim.

The past twenty years had been unkind to Tim Shepard, but in fairness, Tim Shepard had been unkind to the past twenty years. After Angela's Brumly Boy knocked her up and left her high and dry (and Angela was too proud to come home and seek out Tim's help, which he would have freely given), Tim went looking for the kid. When he found him, he took his eye out. Biblical justice, Pony had said. He was more understanding of what Tim had done than Carrie herself, and Carrie was Tim's sister. She remembered she asked Ponyboy why he was so quick to take Tim's side. All Pony did was shrug and say, "Darry would have done the same thing if it had been Sadie. Hell, Darry would have done the same thing if it had been _you_."

When she remembered that, Carrie's heart clenched, and she wondered if she should have offered the fifth ticket to Darry instead. After all, Darry would actually make it a point to show.

Over the course of those two decades, Tim had been in and out of prison. He'd fathered a few kids and even had infrequent contact with his presumable eldest, a boy named Jacob. As soon as Carrie found out she had (another) nephew, she made sure to memorize his birthday and to remind Tim of it every year, even when she was in Michigan, and he was in jail. She remembered Ponyboy had asked her why it was such a massive deal that Tim remember his estranged son's birthday and why it mattered that Carrie have a nephew by him when she already had Michael, Billy, and Jimmy. All Carrie did was shrug and ask, "Don't you think Soda would try to do the same thing?"

Maybe she should have offered the fourth ticket to Soda instead of Dally. It wasn't that Dally had been unimportant to the cause, but to exclude Pony's brothers from the ceremony felt worse and worse the longer she sat there … the longer she wished that Tim would be there. He'd been free and living around the same places in Tulsa for years, and if anything, Tim Shepard knew how to get on a bus. Why couldn't he just be there for her – for real, not because he thought he needed to be – for once in their lives? Why was she thirty-five years old and still displaced in her own family?

On the night before the graduation ceremony, Carrie cried over dinner about how she regretted mailing Tim that ticket. They didn't have very frequent contact, and even though she would always love him, she knew she had to stop wishing that he would come around and be her hero. It was all she ever wanted – for Tim to be just like Darry. But she was a grown woman now. She had to put away childish things and learn how to feel at home in her home.

"Face it, Mama," Cordelia said. "Tim is _heartless_."

"That's about enough from the peanut gallery," Ponyboy said.

He looked at Carrie, who was wiping the embarrassing tears from her cheeks. He grabbed her hand, and for a brief second, Carrie remembered what it was like to feel at home with the Curtises for the first time all over again. She looked up at her husband and almost cracked a smile. She'd never seen him look so much like his father before.

"Maybe Core's a little bit right, though," Pony said. "Maybe Tim can be a little heartless. That don't mean he don't love you. I know he does."

"How do you know that?"

"I just know it. Ain't I allowed to know this?"

"You're allowed to know how to speak English properly. You have a master's degree in creative writing from an _English department_. Didn't they ever say anything to you?"

"They told me that good grammar's just a way of reinforcing stereotypes about race and class. I'll pass."

"Not with the comma in the wrong place, you won't."

It was that exact attitude that landed Carrie in that basketball stadium that night, waiting to receive her doctoral hood and for someone to shake her hand and call her "Dr. Curtis." It was exactly the person she'd always wanted to be, even before she knew it. She'd never been happy as Carrie Shepard – not really. The only time she was happy as Carrie Shepard was when she knew, for certain, that one day she would become Carrie Curtis. She was only happy as Carrie Shepard when she knew that one day, she and Ponyboy would leave Tulsa and try to establish a home somewhere else. She was only happy as Carrie Shepard when she remembered that she wouldn't have to be Carrie Shepard for the rest of her life. It was too much pressure, and she always felt displaced in the name. It was like she hadn't earned the right to be called one. She could feel it in the way her siblings used to look at her. She never wanted to go through that again.

At the end of the ceremony, Carrie met up with her small gaggle of family and friends. Everyone shook her hand and called her "Dr. Curtis." Even Dally went along with it because Lucy told him that he needed to, and Dally usually did what Lucy requested of him. All the while, she looked over her shoulder and around the busy parking lot to see if she'd missed Tim. Ponyboy saw the look in his wife's eye and wrapped his arm around her shoulders with all the love in the world.

"Carrie," he said softly. "He ain't here."

"But that's ridiculous," Carrie said. "He has to be here. I told him about it. I mailed him the ticket. Do you think it's possible it got lost in the mail? Did a mailman open the envelope and give the ticket to the first person on the street? I did see a very tall blonde mingling with a family of brunette people. Didn't look like she belonged with them. Maybe she got Tim's ticket?"

"Or maybe Tim just didn't wanna sit with a bunch of folks who left him high and dry, in the dust."

Carrie's heart stopped like it had so many times before. Only this time, it wasn't with love or dread, like when she discovered her true feelings for Ponyboy or when she came home only to discover that Angela would never be back. This time, she was surprised. When she turned around and saw Tim Shepard standing in front her, she was (to say the least of it) surprised.

"Don't mix your metaphors, Tim," Carrie said.

"That's about the most Carrie thing you could say."

Carrie Curtis did not hug her eldest brother, though every part of her wanted to. She thought for a moment and wondered if she ever hugged Tim in all her life. Maybe once, when she was a kid, and their old lady had been gone for a little longer than usual. Even then, the memory felt more like a hazy dream than a real recollection. On that day (the day she became Dr. Carrie Curtis, after years of growing up in the Shepard house, where no one even knew she was bright), she stared up at Tim and wondered how long it had been. She wondered how long it had been since they last saw each other – really saw each other. Maybe they never had. Maybe Tim never felt at home in the old Shepard house, either. Maybe Tim never felt at home with little Carrie, just like she never quite felt at home with him.

"What would you know?" Carrie said, mostly joking but somewhat serious. "You never even knew I liked to read till one day I knocked on your door and told you I got a full ride to TU."

"I ain't very good at seein' stuff."

"You're good at seeing cops when you're doing something you shouldn't."

"Used to be. Then I got real good at gettin' caught."

Tim's eyes wandered over to Dally, who looked at his old buddy with a face made of stone. When they were much younger boys, Dally and Tim had always wreaked havoc together. But as soon as Dally realized how much he cared for Lucy (and as soon as he realized how much he cared for his daughter, Elenore, born before his twentieth birthday), even Dally had forgotten about him. Carrie always felt guilty about that. Dally had been more of a home for Tim than any of his siblings had been. She was a grown woman with a daughter of her own, and yet, she couldn't stop thinking about what she could have done differently when she was seven, twelve, fourteen. She'd been so selfish then. Selfish and self-righteous.

The velvety hat on her head was all of a sudden heavy.

"Why'd you come, Tim?" Carrie asked. "I mean, not like I'm not happy to see you. I'm just …"

"Surprised," Tim said. It wasn't a question. He knew.

"Well, of course. We hardly ever talk except when I remind you of your own son's birthday."

Tim laughed.

"Dammit, little Carrie," he said. "You know I ain't never forgot Jacob's birthday?"

Carrie furrowed her brow.

"What?" she asked.

"No," Tim said. "He's my son. My only son. Not my only kid, sure, but the girls don't want nothin' to do with me. Can't say I blame 'em, but …"

"Tim, you're trailing off."

"I'm gettin' there, doc. Don't fuckin' push. I ain't never forgot my son's birthday. Reason I never told ya is 'cause I kinda like gettin' your calls every year."

Carrie's eyes nearly popped out of her head. It was the first time since she was a little girl that she felt like she might be able to have a home with Tim in it – a real home, not just the place where she slept and wondered who would be in the house the next day and who would be waiting for Darry Curtis in the county jail. She felt almost moved to reach out and embrace her brother, but she remained still and cold as a stone. She'd just gotten him to come around after twenty years – twenty years since Angela ran off with that Brumly Boy and changed everything back at the Shepard house with barely a second thought. It had been twenty years. Carrie wasn't going to do anything that could make her lose Tim for good.

"I could call more often," Carrie said. "That's what phones are for."

"You're busy," Tim said. "You got a big fancy job that I didn't even know was a job somebody like you could have. You got a whole life here – husband, kid."

His eyes wandered over to Ponyboy, who had been holding his daughter's hand since the minute Tim walked over to them. Cordelia had met Tim once or twice in her lifetime, but she'd never been able to feel at home around him, either. Carrie always wished that could have been different. She swam like a fish with her Curtis uncles and aunts. Sometimes, Carrie wished that Cordelia understood where else she came from. She wondered if that could ever feel like home to her in a way that it never could for her mother.

"Hey, kid," Tim said. "Didn't mean to pass you up like that."

"Hi, Tim," Ponyboy said. It was all he said. He couldn't help but still feel afraid of Tim Shepard. Carrie understood. She felt the same way.

"I just wanted to come here and show up for ya," Tim said, turning his head back to Carrie. "I was never there when you was a kid. Wasn't like I … well, you know. I never hated ya. Ya just scared the shit outta me."

He took a step back and marveled at Carrie in her robes. She shrunk a little bit, feeling very much on display.

"But I guess, take a look at ya," Tim said. "You turned out all right without much help from me or anybody else. Dr. Curtis. Who'da thought we'd get a _Dr. Curtis _outta the Shepard home?"

Carrie smiled. She knew exactly how. When she'd felt displaced in her own home with a brother who seemed not to have a real heart, she'd gone to be with the Curtises. She'd gone to be with people like Lucy Bennet who told her what to read and what kinds of questions to ask. When Carrie was busy assuming that Tim had no heart, she'd made a home for herself elsewhere. It was only when she became _Dr. Carrie Curtis _that she wondered if she should have taken her Tin Man along with her.

"You don't have to hide from me," Carrie said. "You can call me whenever you want."

"What makes me think you'll answer?" Tim asked.

"I'm telling you right now that I will."

Tim nodded, giving the idea some thought – or at least appearing to do so. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit up like it was still Tulsa in the 60s. It was the first time in years since Carrie felt a pull toward Tulsa in the 60s … the first time it felt like it might have been her home.

"I'll tell you what," Tim said. "I'll give you a couple-a calls every now and then if you promise to visit more than once a fuckin' year."

"Are you kiddin'?" Ponyboy asked. "Your sister's got a Ph.D. in philosophy. I got a degree in creative writing. We got a daughter who likes to get fed. We're poor as shit. We can't visit more than once a year. No way."

"Ya can, and ya will, Curtis," Tim said. "It's your damn home. Your brothers still fuckin' live there. Plus, if ya came back home more than once a year, maybe my niece wouldn't have to draw blood to your arm holdin' on so tight."

Cordelia looked up at her uncle and into his eyes for the first time since he'd joined the group. Nervously, she relinquished her grip on her father and waved.

"Hi, Tim," she said.

"Hey, little Cordelia," he said. He looked at Ponyboy, a little confused and a little pissed off.

"That ain't a little name," Tim said. "And I know you're the one who came up with it."

"What can I say?" Ponyboy asked, his voice dripping with that sarcasm Carrie had always loved so much. "Her dad ain't a little guy."

Tim rolled his eyes and turned back to Carrie. Carrie was easing into things, especially since she'd finally noticed Lucy and Dally had backed off and hid in the corner full minutes earlier. This was a space for family. This was a space for a family to try to understand what it meant to visit home.

"You'll visit?" Tim asked. It was the first time Carrie felt _wanted _by her big brother. She wanted to cry, but she didn't.

"Yeah," she said, nodding to keep her mind busy. "We'll come home."

* * *

_2005_

When Carrie Shepard Curtis was almost fifty-five years old, she was quite sure that Veronica Winston was the new Dorothy.

After Carrie's graduation with her Ph.D., she was hired at Fordham University in The Bronx, which meant she, Pony, and Cordelia were all set to join the Bennet-Winstons in New York City. While they didn't get the chance to see Elenore grow up (They moved to the city just as Elenore was entering college at NYU.), they _did _get the chance to watch her daughter, Veronica, grow up instead.

"We really don't have to go," Ponyboy said as they were headed out the door. "It ain't like Veronica knows ..."

"We have to go, Ponyboy," Carrie said. Her voice was (understandably) sharp. "Bennet women have that effect on people, you know. Turn a criminal soft. Remember when Tim came to visit us when Veronica was just born? Never thought I'd see the day he'd melt, but there I was, bearing witness."

"Guess so. So, you excited to watch some kids butcher a story you love, or what?"

"I'll take any chance I can spend with _The Wizard of Oz_. And I think Veronica will make a fine Dorothy. There's something very Judy about her."

Ponyboy nodded. It was hard to deny. Veronica Winston looked like her grandmother's side of the family – striking dark hair, porcelain skin, and light eyes. Lucy and her daughter, Elenore, had dark blue eyes. Veronica was the outlier, they said. She was aquamarine (Lucy's fancy way of saying _green_.). Against her better judgment, Carrie loved the little one's eyes. They reminded her of Cordelia.

It had taken Carrie a few years to feel like New York City and Fordham were her home. She'd never quite acclimated to Michigan, as the winters were too brutal for her taste. Besides, she felt that people were always judging her Tulsa accent. That was one of the good things about New York. Where people from Ann Arbor, Michigan, heard the Curtises speak and assumed they must have voted for Nixon, people from New York almost didn't hear the Oklahoma in their voices. The sirens were too loud for anyone to notice a difference.

And that was when Carrie realized it. She realized why Dally had been drawn to New York when he was just eleven years old and why Lucy felt called there when she was twenty-two. She realized why, out of all the people she grew up with back in Tulsa, they were the ones to make it in New York. They'd always been off the beat – Pony with his art, Lucy with her literary theory, and Carrie with her moral philosophy. They were never going to make it in Tulsa. Tulsa was ready to spit them out when they saw them on its plate. But New York was different. New York was the place little Carrie Shepard could finally call home because it was nobody's home. It was a bunch of displaced people trying to make it work. She was just lucky to be succeeding.

So, of course she was excited to see Veronica Winston as Dorothy. Veronica was the signpost of their second act. If anyone reminded her of what it was like to find your way home in a frenzy of confusing characters and bright colors, it was Veronica.

As they filtered their way into the auditorium, Ponyboy about died laughing at the sight of Dally sitting next to Lucy. Carrie nudged him in the ribs hard, but it didn't stop him. Dally leaned over in his chair and glared.

"Somethin' funny, kid?" he asked.

Carrie smirked to herself. It was funny to think that Pony was still the kid.

"Just the sight of you at a kids' play," Ponyboy said. "You gotta admit."

"I ain't gotta do shit."

Now it was Lucy's turn to nudge _her _husband in the ribs.

"Don't swear," she said. "There are kids, and we can't cover _all _their ears like we used to do with Elenore."

"Oh, please. Once Veronica and Jenny came around, we cut the shit."

Carrie slid into the row and sat next to Lucy, who had, over the decades, become the sister Angela never was. She was careful not to make much eye contact with Elenore. Elenore noticed.

"Is Jenny in the show?" Carrie asked. Jenny was Dally's great niece and like her grandmother in every way except one – Jenny had a family. Jenny had a home.

"Naw," Dally said. "She went to try out with Veronica, but she got kicked out as soon as they read her name off the attendance. Apparently, if you scare a buncha kids with somethin' called Bloody Mary in the bathroom, you ain't allowed to put on a pair-a tights and dance around with the rest of the goons."

Lucy narrowed her eyes at her husband.

"You do realize your granddaughter is one of the goons, don't you?" she asked. "The _lead _goon, as a matter of fact."

"Well, at least she sees it about herself."

Lucy rolled her eyes and turned to Carrie.

"It's a shame Cal's too cool for the play now," Lucy said, referring to Cordelia's only son. "He'd have made a great Tin Man."

"Takes after his Uncle Tim in that way," Carrie said.

Since her graduation day twenty years earlier, Carrie and her family held true to their promise. They came home to visit Tim (and everyone else, but for Carrie, it was about Tim) twice a year. It wasn't exactly the same feeling as home, but it was close. Since then, Tim had created his own side of the deal: For every visit Carrie and her family made to Tulsa, he would come to visit them in New York (and made it feel even more like home). Carrie knew he'd never admit it, but Tim liked coming into the city. It made him feel seen because nobody was watching him like they did in the old neighborhood. Maybe that was why the siblings exchanged visits twice a year. The only exception was 1994.

The lights in the school auditorium went down, and Veronica Winston, with her dark hair in braids and a gingham dress to match her eyes of aquamarine, came out onto the stage. She sang with the voice of a nervous ten-year-old, but Lucy was proud. She sang with the voice of a nervous ten-year-old, but there was still something in her that resonated with Carrie Shepard in the audience.

"'_Someday I'll wish upon a star / and wake up where the clouds are far behind me / Where troubles melt like lemon drops / away above the chimney tops / that's where you'll find me._'"

Carrie felt her husband's hand and let it fit into hers. From the outside, it must have been a strange moment to bring them together. But Carrie knew better. This was the only home she'd ever need. Veronica Winston sure made a fine Dorothy to make her feel that way.

"You OK?" Pony asked.

Carrie nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "Just … good to be here."

It hurt like hell, but she felt _placed. _It was good to feel placed. It was good to be home.

* * *

**And that was "Displaced." I feel particularly strange about this fic, considering its not as warmly intertwined with the themes of the fairytale as the previous four installments. In this fic, I spent **_**way **_**more time establishing my own Shepard lore and the character of Carrie, since she's the OFC I spent the least amount of time with in the multi-chap fics. I hope you can forgive me for the blatant lack of Dorothy. And if you squint, you can **_**maybe **_**tell where I'm originally from. **

**Oh, boy, I have manipulated the heck out of Father Time in this story. I hope he doesn't bring a suit against me. Let me clear up some of my anachronisms, within American history, Hinton's canon, and my own AU and its timeline.**

**Please note that the Easter tradition of **_**The Wizard of Oz **_**didn't start until the late 1960s. It's my way of manipulating history just a little bit!**

**Also, yes: Like Ponyboy, Carrie's birthday is in July, but she was born in 1950. Ignore the fact that I rounded up their ages in 1957 but specified their literal, in-the-moment ages in 1963. Their literal in-the-moment ages mattered more when they were turning twelve and thirteen than they mattered when they were turning six and seven.**

**Also, also, yes, yes: Angela wouldn't have packed up and left in 1965. Based on the events of **_**That Was Then, This Is Now**_**, she would have left **_**at least **_**one year later, perhaps two. But since most of the events of **_**The Outsiders **_**don't occur in my sprawling and chipper AU, I think I gather that the events of **_**That Was Then, This Is Now **_**probably wouldn't have happened, either.**

**Hinton owns **_**The Outsiders**_**. MGM owns **_**The Wizard of Oz**_**. **_**Plan 9 from Outer Space **_**is perhaps notoriously awful director Ed Wood's most famous movie, and Vampira refers to Maila Nurmi, who starred in the film. I own nothing there, of course, though I did write a paper about Nurmi in the first year of my master's program. I own a **_**Star Wars **_**Christmas sweater, but you weren't surprised by that.**


End file.
